Reducing Child Poverty

People living in poverty are disadvantaged because they can’t afford things they need; the Welsh Government defines it as “not having enough money to buy food, clothing and a safe place to live”3. On a worldwide scale this issue is much worse, with many children having no access to clean water and adequate sanitation which leads to 1.4 million children dying each year1. Many more die (10.6 million in total) prematurely from other poverty related problems, such as lack of medicine. According to the Global Issues website, there are 1 billion children living in poverty globally, that’s almost ½ of the children in the world1. It’s important to have strategies in place to try to reduce child poverty because it is a vicious cycle, meaning that children
If governments make their citizens pay more tax, wealth filters down from the rich to the poor, reducing poverty. This can be seen when comparing countries like Iceland, where only 4.7% of children are in relative poverty to countries like the USA, where 23.1% of children are in this situation2. Citizens of Iceland pay more tax than the average US citizen, with a bigger gap between the amount of tax paid by the poor and rich. The money from this higher taxation goes into government schemes like the NHS and housing programs meaning the poor do not have to pay for these things so they can use their money to try to achieve a better standard of living. It’s important to note that nearly all of the poverty in the developed world is what is known as relative poverty. Relative poverty is where the essentials such as shelter and food can be afforded but with little to no disposable income left over for everyday non essential things such as televisions or cars. Absolute poverty (mainly found in undeveloped countries) is where basic human needs such as food and shelter can’t be afforded. However, high taxation isn’t going to help anyone if the government isn’t spending the money with the interests of its people in mind. In India, 75% of people earn less than £63 a month3. However, this same country has a space program costing £880,000,000 a year4. Vanity projects such as this are massively detrimental to the people trying to live in these countries. To decrease child poverty we need to increase taxes, especially those of the wealthy, but at the same time increase personal tax free allowance. This would ensure that the poor had more money and the wealthier gave more back to society. We also need to hold countries that don’t spend their money on their people accountable because what they are doing harms millions of